And a great holliday is always over before you realise it.When I arrived back at home there were several things that needed my immediate attention.

First my car needed servicing as I had a problem with the engine cooling system. Luckily we made it home without any major problems. Something however needed to be done about that.

A whole bunch of e-mails were waiting for my answers. So I am hopelessly behind with answering my e-mail. Anyone of you reading this and still waiting for an answer to one of your questions: patience your question will get my attention soon. However, if you read this log regularly you would have known that I went on a holliday. And deducting that my answering e-mails might take longer would be easy.

There were several wines that needed attending. I needed to empty my carboys by bottling wines. I think the plums will be ripe soon and then I will need all the empty carboys I can spare.I was greatly pleased that my two rhubarb wines, made from rhubarb I received as a gift for my winemaking advise from Piet, where delicious. If you can lay your hands on some rhubarb, start cleaning and freezing it !! The recipes will follow on this log in due time.A wine with a very sensational flavor experience was my anise wine, by my own devellopped recipe. This recipe will also be published in due time on this log.Life is too short to drink bad wine.

Last autumn I made 30 liter pumpkin wine. This wine had aged sufficient, and now was the time to bottle it.I took a sample with my winethief. Two glasses. One for Els and one for me. We took a sip and looked at eachother.The wine was in perfect balance. Not too acidic and not too much alcohol. A well made dry wine. There was just one minor problem....We did not like it.

Els and I both did not like the taste of it. Mind you, it was not spoiled or whatever. It just was not to our liking. I am surely not going to bottle 30 liter bad-tasting wine. Certainly not when I am sure that I am not going to drink it. So......I poured 30 liter pumpkinwine down the drain.

Who ever thinks that this is a waste is just partially wrong. Of course it is a waste of all the work and time I invested in this wine. And please be aware that making pumpkin wine is a lot of work !!However I make wine because I do not like the wine sold in the shops. If I did like the commercial wines I would go and buy these instead of making wine myself. So if I am not drinking commercial wines because I do not like the flavor/taste I am certainly not going to drink any bad-tasting wine I made myself, just because I invested some time and money in it. Anything I drink has to meet my standards.Life is too short to drink bad wine.

As the Dutch wine-writer Nicolaas Klei so justly wrote in his wine-encyclopedia "Tot op de Bodem' : There only exist two kinds of wine, and the bad one of these goes down the drain.

About doing extra work.

Before I went on a holliday I received a few e-mails that.....To put it mildly, they amazed me.

First there was someone who asked me if I could convert part of my web-log into a PDF file. That would make it easier for him to print the pages and put them in his winemaking-recipe-binder.Well I am sorry, but if you do not know how to convert a web-page to a PDF file, or how you can copy a web-page and paste it in a wordprocessor tochange the layout to something that suits you, it is getting time for you to put some effort in expanding your computer-knowledge.Go on a computer course, visit computer forums, or pay someonbe generously to get the job done, but please do not bother me.

Then there was someone that asked me where he could buy a steam extractor. Again, if you are not able to put the word 'steam-extractor' in the search function of Google, go take computer lessons.

And the worst one was someone who summed me to hurry up with a certain story concerning winemaking. He needed that info this autumn as he had a large amount of grapes coming in which needed professional processing.

I am sorry that I will not be hastened and I do not do requests. In fact I do requests when I think the subject is interesting enough, or when I find something in it that I have not encountered elsewhere.But if you do have a commercial problem that needs to be solved, hire a wine-consultant. I am doing this log for fun.

Maybe I should open a Pay-Pal account to start paid consulting myself......

Anyone who has a normal wine-making question, or an urgent problem can consult me at any time by mail. And you will get an aswer. I am pleased to do so, as many of you already have found. Sometimes I even get ideas for this web-log by answering questions. So do not hesitate to contact me, but do realise that it should be a normal wine-making question that does not falls in one of the above described categories, unless you are willing to pay generously for it ................

France !!!

So we spent 3 weeks in France. We ended up in the Town of Langres. Good weather and sometimes rain and twice a heavy thunderstorm. We had a thunder-strike in a tree at less as 100 meter from our camping-site. Fortunately there was nobody woonded and no severe material damage.

We drove through Burgundy and the vinyards of Champagne.

We passed the famous town Epernay.

We know the name Epernay from the yeast that is called after it. This yeast-strain is known in the US as Cotes des Blanks (Epernay 2). The town is however more known as the unofficial hart of the Champagne region.

So what do I drink on a holliday.

Well as you will know by now I generally do not like grape wines. A few varieties excepted. So I also do not like french wines. Taking my own wines with me would be carrying water to the sea, cursing in a church. So I drink some other beverage.

Champagne ??No, I do not like that either. We used to buy Champagne for new-years eve, but stopped doing that. We always drank it with friends, but as we found out: because it is custom to do so. In reality nobody really liked it.I think, as with many wines, snobism plays a great part in this. Selling wine and Champagne is 90% marketing.

So what do I drink.

There you have it. Hard cider is my favorite beverage in France, beside a few deliscious liquors which are considerabvly cheaper in France as in the Netherlands.

And I encountered some special drinks.

Pol Remy makes fantastic bubble wines with fruit aroma's: raspberry, cassis and peach. Really recommended for a picknock or just as a cool drink on a hot summer night.Fortunately I was able to take some with me back home.

And even fortunate was I to have brought my own bubbly to France: Elderflower-Champagne. A sparkling low-alcohol wine made from elderflowers. An experiment which I did for the first time this year. Bottled in Cola and other Pet-bottles to withstand the pressure.

The version the picture shows you had not cleared yet. The others have. This experiment worked out great to my amazement. Unfortunately I just made 10 bottles.Next year spring, when the elders flower again I will give you the recipe. Until then, have patience and keep coming back.

Langres

The town of Langres is situated between Metz and Dijon in the Haute Marne region. A short distance from Burgundy. It is the birth place of the great French philosopher Diderot. A beautiful medieaval town surrounded by a fortified wall. The campingsite is uniquely situated on the wall. At fridays there is a local market. Some restaurants and nice outdoor cafe's add to the towns charm.

There are in the surroundings some nice places to visit for winelovers and winemakers.

- At Millieres there is a distillery which can be visited by the public.- At Isomes there is a company that makes liquor, syrup, juice, jam and cookies from blackcurrents- In Montheries there is a company that makes sparkling wines from blackcurrants and- At Coiffy there is a company that makes wines from flowers.

All these companies are open for the public and offer tours.

As you can see there are even in France companies that make wines and related products from other ingredients as grapes.

Reading, reading and reading.

Hollidays are the moments to rest. Enjoy the sun, good food and pleasant company. And it gives me a chance to read a lot. I am a big time fantasy fan so I read a few fantasy books. And I usually take a few winebooks.

This time I took along two books I found on the internet, downloaded and printed. After that I hand-bound them. Bookbinding is another hobby of mine that allows me to download books that are not in print anymore, or complete websites, print them in a special format, and bind them so it becomes a real book.

The books I had with me were:- The Chemistry of Wine, by G.J. Mulder- The British Winemaker, by W.H. RobertsBoth books are downloadable at Google books. The information within the books is dated. It is however fun to read how winemaking was looked upon in the 1800's.

Besides these I read:- Home winemaking, by Jon Iverson- Techniques in Home Winemaking, by Daniel Pambianchi.Iverson's book is a real good book for beginners in which many techniques are simply explained in a step by step manner. It contained some tricks which I even did not knew. Pambianchi's book is recommended as a reference for experienced winemakers, not a book I would suggest to a beginner.

These books are difficult obtainable in Dutch bookstores, so I ordered them over te internet. I ordered another 5 english winemakingbooks this way. I guess most Dutch winemakers are not buying winemaking books in another language. Otherwise they would be more easy to buy over here.

In all my winemaking years I have build myself a library of some dozens winemaking books in English, German and Dutch.If there are some of you interested in book-revieuws, let me know by e-mail. You can find my adress at the top of this page on the right side.

Until next time have a nice summer.

Luc Volders

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